Using Cropping Overlays in Lightroom

Photofocus (old site)

Note: This post is from our book Develop Great Images in Lightroom (available on iBookstore & Scribd).

Lightroom offers several different overlays to help with composing your crop.  There is no right way to crop, after all the goals can be the removal of distractions, the changing of emotion, or technical requirement.  But overlays are designed to help with all of these.

Available Ratios

• Grid: The grid overlay works quite well for architectural images.  The horizontal and vertical lines can help with edges as well as straightening an image.  This option will pop-up whenever you rotate an image as well.
• Thirds: The Rule of Thirds grid is commonly used to compose balance.  Most commonly, a subject is placed at one of the intersection points of the grid.
  
• Diagonal: The Diagonal overlay creates a series of 45˚ diagonal lines from the four corners.  This intersection is useful working with…

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Write again

50 Shades of Shame

From guest blogger Jason Kovach.

Let me speak on this before I lose my lid.. I think it’s sick that society feeds this garbage to our kids. I’m not talking bout little babies .. I’m talkin bout teenage kids.. you see I was raised with a blind fold to immorality and wasn’t fed this sickness from these books and movies that are meant to make our society become mislead.. God made us in his image with love and a purpose.. But we would rather spit in his face and lift up perversion!! I’m so tired of it all I’m can stand here and scream Jesus was crucified for you! But that ain’t workin…. Women get so abused with lust they feel like their not worth it.. after a while they just accept is as normal.. Then we have movies like this that push the boundaries to a limit ..the world should be ashamed your just taking the devils gimmick.. If people would just look at their wives and husbands the way we should., we wouldn’t want something else, we would be happy we’re we stood. If you’re a Christian it’s time to start speaking up, the devils not taking a break, you really think we should??  I love my brothers and sisters . Thank you for taking time to read this rant. We can do all things in Christ

Top 3 | January 9, 2015

This week’s top 3 covers the profound statements of our Savior, ways to stay positive, and spiritual gifting. If you have ever wondered what your spiritual gifts are, I would highly recommend taking the spiritual gifts test. Now, I am not advocating that this test or any such ‘testing’ will result in perfectly identifying how God created you to be but it could be helpful to give you more insight and challenge you to think a little deeper on the subject.

I hope you enjoy reading my suggestions and that they will also ignite a curiosity in you for God and who He created you to be.

Finding joy | Jules Suman

I am super excited to read and share the words of my wife. She had taken a sabbatical from writing for the last couple months and I look forward again to reading her encouraging words that can ignite an excitement for thankfulness in us all. 

Sitting here in my dimly lit living room, feet up, my puppy lying in my lap. The furnace hums, having a difficult time keeping pace with the dropping temperatures outside. In the near distance, voices from the hockey game being played on my son’s tv call the play by play. Outside the picture window bright white snow begins to let go of the sun’s reflection and take to take on twilight. I look at the clock excited that my husband will be home soon and we will break bread together. Giving thanks to God for all of it. I add each of them to my list of gifts I have begun collecting. I do my best to capture these tiny moments in my memory to retrieve when joy seems elusive. For when I am too caught up in myself to truly live in God’s grace and feel His joy that is ever present. These little things are beautiful gifts given to me by a God who is full of grace. For all of these little gifts this afternoon I will be thankful and in them I will find joy.

via Finding joy « Jules Suman †.

Let it snow

“Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow. (Isaiah 1:18)

As I sit here this morning looking at the results of the snow fall last night, I can’t help to be transported in memory to my childhood.

Who doesn’t like snow as a kid?

No school. Sleeping in. Snowball fights and snowmen. 

God is love

Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. (1 John 4:7)

Unconditional love is a subject that some avoid. A subject where as much as has there’s been written about it there are as many cases against its validity and the belief that it can truly be exercised. It could be, as a Christian, one area of our life that will challenge us the most because love is tested when emotions drive us away from God’s intention.

For me, I have had my share of battles not only conveying this type of love but being the reciprocal party. At times, it doesn’t take much for us to push away from a friend, a co-worker, or a loved one. Sometimes the simplest thing that we hold tightly to that in the end holds us hostage from God’s intention for us to live in peace and joy with one another. To be content within ourselves.

For me, there are two things that I reflect on when embracing unconditional love in my own personal life:

Top 3 | January 3, 2015

This week’s top 3 are filled with fives but you won’t want to miss reading what Carey Nieuwhof and Ron Edmondson tells us about what we can accomplish in the upcoming year.  

In sickness and in health

If my resolution for 2015 was to be healthy and sickness free, I failed already.

The new year ushered in a prescription for a head cold that has left me lifeless and practically immobile. You want to get up and join the daily movement of life but the body rejects your notion and it is time to hibernate the day away yet again. But I am hopeful that in the hours to come, I may rejoin my crazy schedule and my relationship with cold medicine and aspirin comes to an end.

It is not by choice but when we are ill, we have no other option but to stop. To detach and to rest.

It is in these times that I find that my conversations with God never-ending.

Question and Answer Session 5

This weeks Q&A session focuses on what pain and suffering you may have experienced that God has allowed in your life as well as praying and being spiritually fed.

I am very curious in how you would answer the questions below so please comment and help ignite the conversation.

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Do you think God has ever used pain and suffering to get your attention? If so, what was he trying to get across to you?